the Crapsey cinquain and its variations

Adelaide Crapsey did not invent the five-line poem. The Sicilian quintain, the English quintain, the Spanish quintella, the Japanese tanka, and the French cinquain all predate hers. What she did invent, however, is a distinct American version of the five-line poem. Inspired by Japanese haiku and tanka and based on her advanced knowledge of metrics, she believed her form "to be the shortest and simplest possible in English verse."1

So what ingredients make up the Crapsey cinquain and how has it evolved since her volume of poetry was first published in 1915?

Crapsey cinquain

Adelaide Crapsey did not directly address the form she had invented in any of her writings so critics have had to examine the cinquains themselves and ancillary materials from the Crapsey papers when speculating on her intentions for the form. Cinquain prosody is fairly obvious to anyone willing to do the scansion; the verse follows an accentual and syllabic pattern and relies heavily on the iambic foot. To describe the aesthetic ambitions of the cinquain is more difficult, but it is possible to draw some general conclusions based on the work itself and evidence relating to possible influences, the most compelling of which involves Crapsey's study of Eastern poetic forms.

Crapsey was acquainted with several books of Japanese poetry in translation including Michel Revon's French translations of tanka and haiku in Anthologie de la Litterature Japonaise (1910). A few of her cinquains have been identified as modified tanka taken directly from this collection and there are several pages of poems she copied from Revon's volume among her papers at the University of Rochester.2 It is unclear how well Crapsey understood the complexities of the haiku and tanka traditions beyond metrical considerations, but one might surmise that the juxtaposition, compression, and restraint found in her cinquains represents partly the influence of these Japanese forms on her own.

Her interest in Japanese poetry has also led some critics to link her to the Imagist movement that became popular shortly after she died and was led by the likes of Ezra Pound, H. D., and Amy Lowell. Louis Untermeyer, editor for many years of Modern American Poetry, for example, called her "an unconscious Imagist." Although her untimely death precluded any chance for her to collaborate with these poets, Crapsey was undoubtedly influenced by some of the same factors that fomented their movement including a desire to pull back from some of the excesses of the Georgian poets. Like Crapsey's cinquains, Imagist poetry is characterized by the precise use of imagery and economy of language.

The clearest understanding of cinquain aesthetics, however, remains encapsulated in the works themselves, especially in how cinquain dynamics (the accumulation of energy in lines one through four followed by the inevitable collapse in the fifth line) relates directly to Crapsey's meanings. Sanehide Kodama says of the cinquain that, "the form itself suggests a meaning, and a tragic sense. It suggests laborious effort for attainment tersely terminated by the wholly unanticipated,"3 and Edward Butscher states that "the cinquain focuses the haiku's taut compression of emotion into a single striking symbol or metaphor, with the latter building toward a climax of severe but precise understatement that will trail off in the last line."4 Just as Crapsey's burgeoning talent was cut short by her disease so the best cinquains take advantage of a similar tragic sense in their execution within a form that has been fashioned with disturbing accuracy in the image of its creator.

What follows is a list of some of the fundamentals of the Crapsey cinquain:

An accentual stress pattern of 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 1 was primary to Crapsey's cinquains although this has been routinely underemphasized by critics.5

TRIAD

stresses

L1

These BE

1

L2

Three SIlent THINGS:

2

L3

The FALLing SNOW …the HOUR

3

L4

BeFORE the DAWN …the MOUTH of ONE

4

L5

Just DEAD.

1

A syllabic pattern of 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 2.

TRIAD

syllables

L1

These / be

2

L2

Three / si / lent / things:

4

L3

The / fall / ing / snow… / the / hour

6

L4

Be / fore / the / dawn… / the / mouth / of / one

8

L5

Just / dead.

2

Though not exclusive, the dominant metrical foot is the iamb (which lends itself naturally to the accentual stress requirement).

TRIAD

feet

L1

These BE

u-

L2

Three SIlent THINGS:

u-u-

L3

The FALLing SNOW …the HOUR

u-u-u-

L4

BeFORE the DAWN …the MOUTH of ONE

u-u-u-u-

L5

Just DEAD.

u-u-

Although modeled after Eastern forms such as the haiku and tanka which are almost never titled, Crapsey titled all of her cinquains. Furthermore, her titles were not casual but usually functioned as active "sixth lines" which conveyed important meaning to the poem:

THE GUARDED WOUND

L1

If it

L2

Were lighter touch

L3

Than petal of flower resting

L4

On grass, oh still too heavy it were,

L5

Too heavy!

Although it was likely a matter of fashion rather than a meaningful poetic decision, Crapsey used initial capitalization exclusively for each of the cinquain's five lines.

American cinquain

Is there an American cinquain? This question was in part the impetus for this project and my initial sense was that the form had faltered soon after leaving the hands of Adelaide Crapsey ninety years ago. How could the Crapsey cinquain be the American cinquain when no one is writing cinquains in a way that is consistent with the formula she established? If anything, it seems like the form has devolved into something much simpler: verse of a 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 2 syllabic structure, an exercise in metrics regardless of meaning.

So to put my money where my mouth is, I undertook a semester's worth of writing to see where the cinquain would take me. I am not sure I got any further in redefining the form, but I definitely feel like I made some successful attempts at writing cinquains. You can review and even comment on my work if you care on my cinquain blog.

I have taken the time to assemble some of my notes in the chance they might be useful to others interested in advancing the form:

Sentential structure: A fair number of my cinquains turned out to be complete sentences. In other words, if you unstacked the lines so they formed one long line, the result would be a grammatically correct twenty-two syllable sentence.

Syllabic versification - yes: All of my cinquains are based on the syllabic pattern of 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 2 established by Crapsey.

Initial capitalization - no: This may have been the fashion in Crapsey's time but not now.

An image per line: I tried to offer a complete image on each line (except the first).

Line breaks: In this compressed form line breaks have a high value.

Titling: I've always taken titles seriously, but with the cinquain a good title seems essential. You can't put a casual title on a poem as dense as a cinquain.

Don't overuse "just": Since the mission of the cinquain is to define a precise instant in time, it is tempting to use adverbs and "just" is the biggest offender.

Use adjectives sparingly: Classic "show don't tell" stuff here. Reducing the number of adjectives in the cinquain increases the relevance of the ones you do use. Save them for the last or penultimate line if you can.

Nature, the cleanest theme: Focus on a natural occurence and keep any signs of human civilization in the background if you need to include this at all. As a Thoreauvian, I think the most effective metaphors are found in Nature. As soon as you focus on something that is part of the civilized world you risk tapping into your reader's prejudices. Some people think corvettes are sexy, others think they are cheezy, but everyone likes birds and trees. The only hard part is making birds and trees interesting.

Juxtaposition: Critical for creating the drama that builds through line four.

The turn: The form begs the writer to fall back on the last line. Turn away from the drama of line four in some interesting way in the final line.

didactic cinquain

Like the haiku, the cinquain has found its way into the grade school classroom. The following outlines a common exercise based on the cinquain form:

content

words

L1

Mom

a title

1

L2

Helpful, caring

a phrase that describes your title

2

L3

Loves to garden

a phrase that describes an action relating to your title

3

L4

Excitable, likes satisfying people

a phrase that describes a feeling relating to your topic

4

L5

Teacher

a word that refers back to your title

1

cinquain variations

The following variations on the cinquain have evolved as writers have experimented with the form: